What are your thoughts on the Confederate memorials being taken down in NOLA?
- Thread starter Displaced Bama Fan
- Start date
Let me just say I'm so happy the black politicians who are primarily behind this have already accomplished the REALLY important stuff for their community that is actually relevant, such as reducing/ending illegitimacy, providing health care for all, ending child hunger, and all those other far more important than this crusade cause.
I'm trying to figure how i missed the news that all those more important goals had been achieved so that we could move to items of more peripheral importance, like what some person on a monument believed 150 years ago.
I've stated before that the Confederate flag over Mississippi will eventually come down, even if it's 100 years from now. But the crusaders on this issue better be careful - he who picks this fight will one day be on the receiving end. In fact, it's already happening at the University of Oregon in recent years, where they actually wanted to REMOVE a quote by that well-known Southern Klansman Martin Luther King because it's not inclusive enough.
And for the record, King needs to be striped of the doctorate he plagiarized, too. But you know what? I don't for one second think that having monuments (or even a day) for King constitutes approval of his plagiarism or his extracurricular love life. Of course, Woodrow Wilson was a racist but we're not honoring him FOR his racism any more than we are John Calhoun and some others. (FTR - I view the flying of the state flag of, say, Mississippi at least somewhat different than a memorial to (name your favorite Confederate) because it implies state endorsement of slavery and segregation (remember that most of these Rebel flags in the south that flew from state houses actually are Jim Crow relic celebrations of 1960s segregationism, not 1860s conflict).
We need a more complex view of folks than thinking current standards can be imposed on the past. John Calvin assented to the death of Michael Servetus and Martin Luther (the white one, heh heh) was anti-Semitic......but that's not why we remember them, either
I'm trying to figure how i missed the news that all those more important goals had been achieved so that we could move to items of more peripheral importance, like what some person on a monument believed 150 years ago.
I've stated before that the Confederate flag over Mississippi will eventually come down, even if it's 100 years from now. But the crusaders on this issue better be careful - he who picks this fight will one day be on the receiving end. In fact, it's already happening at the University of Oregon in recent years, where they actually wanted to REMOVE a quote by that well-known Southern Klansman Martin Luther King because it's not inclusive enough.
And for the record, King needs to be striped of the doctorate he plagiarized, too. But you know what? I don't for one second think that having monuments (or even a day) for King constitutes approval of his plagiarism or his extracurricular love life. Of course, Woodrow Wilson was a racist but we're not honoring him FOR his racism any more than we are John Calhoun and some others. (FTR - I view the flying of the state flag of, say, Mississippi at least somewhat different than a memorial to (name your favorite Confederate) because it implies state endorsement of slavery and segregation (remember that most of these Rebel flags in the south that flew from state houses actually are Jim Crow relic celebrations of 1960s segregationism, not 1860s conflict).
We need a more complex view of folks than thinking current standards can be imposed on the past. John Calvin assented to the death of Michael Servetus and Martin Luther (the white one, heh heh) was anti-Semitic......but that's not why we remember them, either
Which is about equal to the number of people who have died either directly at the hands or behest of the Clintons. Imo a statue of either of the Clintons is appropriate only behind prison bars.
When do we take this offensive statue down?
I'm guessing the number of women he's either raped or sexually assaulted at somewhere near 50.
Monuments tell us more about the people who erect them than they do about the people memorialized.
The Liberty Square monument is a case in point. The Battle between the Crescent City White League and the La. Reconstruction government happened in 1874. The monument was erected in 1891. In 1932, a plaque was added celebrating "white rule" and "taking the South back." Hmm..
Then the 1974 it was moved to a less conspicuous spot.
Then in 1989, the inscription was altered to say it was "in honor of those Americans on both sides of the conflict."
Each era had its own take on the events and the monument commemorating them.
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Maybe Cato was onto something.Marcus Porcius Cato said:
On a more serious note we erect monuments to help remember people who have achieved great things or have made great sacrifices for the community. (Not, in any case for their failings, although one hopes their failings are small compared to their achievements.) In Clonakilty, County Cork, locals erected a monument to the Irish lads who fought to liberate Ireland from English rule in 1798. The monument was erected in 1898 during English rule. (wonder what the English governor/mayor at the time made of that).
25 years later, though, the Irish Free State was established.
"The community" evolves over time (as clearly New Orleans has) and so the appreciation of the community served may evolve with it. Mayor Landrieu's efforts to remove them says more about him than it does about the men commemorated. This efforts at fostering "tolerance and understanding" by exercising intolerance and misunderstanding are a bit ironic.
Just a side issue here but related to my last post.
I lived through the futile attempt to remove the Confederate portion of the Mississippi state flag back in 2000-2001. That was some political botchery of the highest order but the simplistic narrative of "Mississippi is still stuck in 1960" was wrong on most counts.
What happened was precisely what my last post on this thread was talking about. In 1999, Ronnie Musgrove got elected governor in a race so close it went to the state house and they voted on party lines for him to be governor. Although I voted for the other guy, I was fine with Musgrove winning as he did get more votes (just not the 50% plus one). In essence, Musgrove got all the black votes and maybe 1/7 of the white vote while Parker got the rest of the white vote. Thus, Musgrove was beholden to his black constituency (or so he thought) right out of the gate.
His first month in office, black politicians in the state went in for their demand - get that emblem off the flag. Black politicians were trying to tie it to the state budget process and a judge ruled in their favor after the Lt Gov tried to stop them from reading these bills before votes and incorporating their condemnation of the state flag. Two days later, the court ruled that the statute covering the current flag (which was introduced in 1894) expired in 1906. Musgrove then pulled the cute little evasion of appointing a committee to "study" the flag issue, which everyone saw for the ruse it was. They proposed a new design, which everyone knew was going to be their recommendation anyway. Out of state groups spent a huge chunk of change trying to persuade the legislature to change it.
The legislature was not touching this hot potato, so they kicked it to the voters. Yes, they actually spent about $32 million to hold a special election in April 2001 (you know, so it wouldn't be on the ballot along with Musgrove himself or some of the other saps who were involved) in the poorest state in the union. Musgrove then tried to distance himself from it, but it was too late - he got clobbered in his re-election bid in 2003.
There were a ton of articles written over whom exactly had what authority over the flag. Musgrove - too obviously to be honest with you - was trying to both be involved and distance himself from the issue simultaneously.
I just personally thought that there were far more important issues to solve in state (like poverty in Tunica County, speaking of an issue that should have engaged everyone but in particular black politicians and white Democrats at an absolute minimum) and better ways to spend $32 million than on a special election over a symbol.
(And the folks coming in from out of state to point fingers and issue condemnations didn't exactly help, either. This isn't just a Southern thing, either - Feinstein ran a commercial against Mike Huffington in 1994 ripping him as "the Texas millionaire Californians can't trust." Human nature doesn't like some interloper coming in and serving as self-appointed judge regardless of who is right).
I lived through the futile attempt to remove the Confederate portion of the Mississippi state flag back in 2000-2001. That was some political botchery of the highest order but the simplistic narrative of "Mississippi is still stuck in 1960" was wrong on most counts.
What happened was precisely what my last post on this thread was talking about. In 1999, Ronnie Musgrove got elected governor in a race so close it went to the state house and they voted on party lines for him to be governor. Although I voted for the other guy, I was fine with Musgrove winning as he did get more votes (just not the 50% plus one). In essence, Musgrove got all the black votes and maybe 1/7 of the white vote while Parker got the rest of the white vote. Thus, Musgrove was beholden to his black constituency (or so he thought) right out of the gate.
His first month in office, black politicians in the state went in for their demand - get that emblem off the flag. Black politicians were trying to tie it to the state budget process and a judge ruled in their favor after the Lt Gov tried to stop them from reading these bills before votes and incorporating their condemnation of the state flag. Two days later, the court ruled that the statute covering the current flag (which was introduced in 1894) expired in 1906. Musgrove then pulled the cute little evasion of appointing a committee to "study" the flag issue, which everyone saw for the ruse it was. They proposed a new design, which everyone knew was going to be their recommendation anyway. Out of state groups spent a huge chunk of change trying to persuade the legislature to change it.
The legislature was not touching this hot potato, so they kicked it to the voters. Yes, they actually spent about $32 million to hold a special election in April 2001 (you know, so it wouldn't be on the ballot along with Musgrove himself or some of the other saps who were involved) in the poorest state in the union. Musgrove then tried to distance himself from it, but it was too late - he got clobbered in his re-election bid in 2003.
There were a ton of articles written over whom exactly had what authority over the flag. Musgrove - too obviously to be honest with you - was trying to both be involved and distance himself from the issue simultaneously.
I just personally thought that there were far more important issues to solve in state (like poverty in Tunica County, speaking of an issue that should have engaged everyone but in particular black politicians and white Democrats at an absolute minimum) and better ways to spend $32 million than on a special election over a symbol.
(And the folks coming in from out of state to point fingers and issue condemnations didn't exactly help, either. This isn't just a Southern thing, either - Feinstein ran a commercial against Mike Huffington in 1994 ripping him as "the Texas millionaire Californians can't trust." Human nature doesn't like some interloper coming in and serving as self-appointed judge regardless of who is right).
In west Texas where the UT McDonald observatory sits in the Davis mountains, the county is Jeff Davis County. Both county and mountain range are named after the president of the confederacy.
Being fought in court.
Virginia has a statute against removing war memorials.
Charlottesville attorneys had argued that this statute does not apply to monument erected before 1997.
Court date set June 19.
There's one to Jackson there as well. He's probably next.
Obviously, the protesters object to people who would defy Virginia law and teach black people to read (which was illegal in Virginia in 1859).
This statue stands in front of the courthouse:
This one is inside the Confederate hospital cemetery on UVa's campus.
Is it your contention that anyone who wants to retain the statue of Robert E. Lee is a white supremacist?
The local group "Save the R. E. Lee statue" group issued this statement about that event:
That would probably explain why the "Save the R. E. Lee Statue" group issued their statement about that event.
They disavowed Spencer's racism.
I unreservedly condemn white supremacists and their use of the Lee statue.
If I had heard of this nonsense beforehand, and there was a NAACP counter-protest, I'd be more inclined to join the NAACP counterprotest.
But I still want the Lee statue to remain.
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